The ugly European

There was a popular book in the 1950’s called “The Ugly American”, which proposed that the US was losing ground in the struggle against Communism because of its arrogance and refusal to try to understand other cultures.

Today a great deal of ugliness comes from Europe. It includes an arrogant belief that they can continue to remake the map of the Mideast however they want, as they’ve done for the past several centuries, as well as a deliberate ignorance about the intentions of the players there.

Richard Goldstone, the South African jurist and author of a controversial UN report which accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the Israel Defense Forces’ military offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter, will receive the Stockholm Human Rights Award, it was announced on Thursday.

“Richard Goldstone has made an outstanding career in the promotion of the rule of law and human rights, first in his home country South Africa and during the last fifteen years in various highly prestigious international fora,” the International Legal Assistance Consortium, a Sweden-based umbrella group of non-governmental organizations which oversees the awarding of the prize, said on Thursday.

Someone — I’m sorry that I don’t recall who — said that they would have given him a Nobel, but he spoiled it by saying that ‘Palestinian armed groups’ (not even ‘Hamas’) “may be guilty of war crimes” along with Israel. And of course they needed to give it to Obama, for reasons not clear to anyone including the recipient.

The European Union will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders except those agreed by the parties.

In other words, the resolution gives all of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians by default unless they agree to let Israel keep any of it! Of course, literally it would belong to Jordan, but I’m sure they don’t intend that.

It says that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the Palestinian state. This implies that all of East Jerusalem will be under Palestinian sovereignty.

It also says nothing about the capital of Israel. So it’s imaginable that the Europeans could continue to maintain, as they — and the US — do today, that no part of Jerusalem belongs to Israel!

It also refers to the EU’s “bilateral relations with Palestine” despite the fact that there is no such state as ‘Palestine’.

The declaration stops short of calling for the entry of Arab refugees into Israel, but does refer to ‘all relevant UN resolutions’ and mentions the Arab Initiative, which are interpreted by the Arabs to imply this.

It calls for an “immediate and unconditional opening of [the Gaza] crossings,” while paying lip service to Israel’s security needs. It calls for Gilad Shalit’s release, but the word ‘Hamas’ does not appear anywhere in the text.

The Palestinians, of course are urging other EU states to support the resolution. Interestingly, the Arab league is unimpressed, calling it ’empty words’.

One wonders why any of this is the Swedes’ or the Europeans’ business at all!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 6:12 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “The ugly European”

Last night I heard Professor Asa Kasher discuss the Goldstone Report. Among its many sins he pointed out that its mandate was to be a Fact- Finding commission but deliberately avoided and rejected all evidence which came from the Israeli side. It did not investigage Arab claims but accepted them lock, stock and barrel. It did in other words the very opposite of what it had been mandated to do, truly investigate what had happened. Kasher pointed out that Goldstone was an ‘opinionizer’ not an objective investigator.
As for the Europeans it is to be hoped that they will not follow the Swedish anti- Israel line, even if it is only because they understand it will not further their stated goal of ‘peace’. But then again they may be so cynical and corrupt that they understanding there is no chance for real peace for the forseeable future simply wish to gain propaganda points with the Islamic world.